What do a disabled superhero, a time-traveling Chinese-American figure skater, and a transgendered animal shifter have in common? They’re all stars of Kaleidoscope stories! Kaleidoscope collects fun, edgy, meditative, and hopeful YA science fiction and fantasy with diverse leads. These twenty original stories tell of scary futures, magical adventures, and the joys and heartbreaks of teenage.

Appropriately enough, I’ve been silent on this for the last six months. ;) They say you should challenge yourself with each book, and I really have been pushing myself with this one. It’s so different from Fair Coin and Quantum Coin, which is fantastic because one of the things I love about YA is I can write pretty much anything I want. It’s been a fun project, and an eye-opening one as I looked deeper into not only what is possible with technology, but what is actually happening in the world right now. Scary stuff, and I’m sure I’ll be discussing that more here in the future.

Thanks to everyone at Adaptive Studios, especially Perrin Chiles and Marshall Lewy; they’re are a savvy creative team who have been great to work with. I’m learning a lot. Also thanks to Eddie Schneider, Kristy King, and Tiffany Schmidt! Many more thanks are sure to come–we still have a lot to do before November!

Perhaps it’s unsurprising that audiobooks take much less time to produce than print books, but still… Less than two months from signing the contract, you can now purchase and download my first YA novel, Fair Coin, in audiobook form in the U.S. and in the U.K. I expect it won’t take long for Quantum Coin to follow.

I’m so excited to have the book out in a different format, with other people adapting the text for a different audience. I’ve only heard the sample of the opening pages so far, but narrator MacLeod Andrews is amazing and his performance is absolutely perfect. It’s both odd and thrilling to hear someone else speaking words that have largely existed only in my head and my voice for so long, and it’s great to hear what MacLeod has done with the book.

To celebrate unlocking the audiobook achievement, here’s some related trivia:

The U.K. audiobook is the first official release of Fair Coin in any foreign market!

MacLeod Andrews also provided the voice of one of the Will Graysons in the audiobook of a favorite YA book of mine, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by David Levithan and John Green.

One of MacLeod’s recent YA audiobook releases was the excellent Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson, who I share an agent with. Some of MacLeod’s other notable (to me) projects for Brilliance Audio and Audible include Jumper by Steven Gould, Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness, and Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown (one of my fellow Apocalypsies).

My mom never read to me when I was a kid (don’t feel too sorry for me, I had a pretty good handle on it on my own), but I really enjoy hearing someone tell me a story. I think it reminds me of the first grade and Reading Rainbow. So maybe that’s why I like going to readings and listening to audiobooks and podcasts!

Now when someone asks me how long Fair Coin is, I can tell them it’s about 9 hours and 40 minutes. The unabridged audiobook is roughly as long as the Lord of the Rings film trilogy!

So if you’ve been waiting for the audiobook, wait no longer! I hope lots of people who haven’t yet read Fair Coin give it a try.

Good news, everyone! We’ve just sold the audio book rights to Fair Coin and Quantum Coin to Audible! Special thanks to my fab agents at JABberwocky who made this possible, Eddie Schneider and Lisa Rodgers.

I’m thrilled because I basically want anyone who might be interested in my books to be able to enjoy them in whatever format they like, and I know lots of people prefer audio books over paper. I also love being read to, and I’m excited to see another interpretation of the stories I wrote. But this deal is especially nice because the duology will finally be available in the UK!

I don’t have any details yet on who will be narrating the books or when they’ll be available, because this pretty much just happened. I doubt I’ll have any input on who the reader will be, but hey, I’d get a kick out of it if Tom Welling or Dean Cain read them.

Who do you think would be the best reader for the audio book versions of Fair Coin and Quantum Coin? And what’s your favorite audio book?

Just like the Nebula Awards, the Norton Award is voted on by members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is more than an honor to have my first novel recognized by writers — it’s freaking awesome is what it is. I have wanted to be a member of SFWA since I started writing, and Fair Coin is the fiction sale that finally made me eligible. And ever since I found out that there was an award for middle grade and young adult SFF (which by the way, is a great thing and very progressive, are you paying attention, Hugo Award committee?), I’ve wondered what it might be like to be nominated for it. Now I know! Freaking awesome.

I’ll admit though, I didn’t really think it would happen this year. As you know, Bob, I was on the committee that added three titles to this somewhat longish shortlist of nominees, and of course, mine couldn’t be one of them. And so many wonderful books for children and teens were published in 2012, which is good for everyone who loves fiction… even the author hoping someone will notice his little novel. After all, I’m not just a writer, I’m a reader, and I’m thrilled that so many of my favorite books made it onto the ballot this year:

If you’ve read even a few of those novels already, you’ll know how amazing it is for me to see Fair Coin listed anywhere near them. If you haven’t read some of these yet, don’t just take my word that they’re great—a lot of other writers think so too. I love reading and writing YA so much, and this ballot is a solid representation of the best that the genre can offer both kids and adults. *blushes*

I’m bouncing around a bit about all the other nominees for the Nebula Awards, many of whom are personal friends and/or writers I admire and also just swell people. (Don’t worry, I’m not gonna name-drop.) Congratulations to everyone, especially my fellow Norton nominees. I, for one, am going to go practice my knot-tying skills and archery to prepare for the arena. There are twelve of us, after all.

Meanwhile, even though I’ve read all the novels on the Norton ballot already (did I mention how great they are?), I still have a lot of reading to catch up on.